Hotel Santa Maria Royal Suites Arequipa

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... winds, these altitude temperatures are so bizarre&#8230;..<br><br>Back to Arequipa around 7.30pm and we headed straight back to our hostel, where we had booked a room with a bathroom, what luxury! No time to rest though, we changed and went straight out to see the famous Santa Catalina Convent, as on Tuesdays and Thursdays it is open after dark until 9pm. We got there just in time to be let in so had an hour to explore&#8230; it is aboslutey huge, on about 2 acres of ...

... skin to defend yourself from the crazy drivers, egocentric Peruvian pedestrians and the touts in every doorway flashing a menu or god-knows-what in your face, the town grows on you quickly. There are vegetarian restaurants where a three-course lunch goes for all of two dollars, and fine-dining "Nuevo Andino" restaurants, where old-world cuisine finds modern refinement and high-priced aesthetics.<br><br>However, we feel most at home, oddly enough, in our ...

... more apparent as we were hassled and buffered on leaving the area to get to his car.<br><br>Our main reason for being in Arequipa is to do some trekking in the second deepest and widest canyon in the world &#8211; Colca. It&#8217;s twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. Our starting point was familiarisation of another new town and once we were settled into the hostal we went out on a little &#8216;recky&#8217; with the help of a local map. It always takes us a day to find our bearings ...

... 2000! As soon as I get some pictures on the computer, I´ll come back and add them in.<br><br>That night, we met up with a guy we met on the bus, Kurt, and decided to go hiking in Cotahausi Canyon. It´s a little off the beaten track, but it´s also (according to some) the deepest canyon in the world. We spent Monday running around getting food and camping gear, and finally, in a fluster made it to the train ...

... out during the concert. We just after the encore started (which lasted about 30 minutes) because the lady who took us said it can be very dangerous to try to leave at the concert ends because its like a stampede to get to the doors and try to find taxis or buses. There were a lot of people doing the same thing as us, and as soon as the vendors saw the people beginning to come out, they descended on the exits with their carts. Think homeless person meets NY ...

... climbing/returning. We DIY`d it - caught a night bus to XXXX and hitched a free ride (and back!) to see the condors at Cruz Del Condor before starting the hike down into the canyon. We pioneered a new route down (silly idea...), got lost whilst following the river to the second bridge (and thus crossed using some random tree/bridge/thing laying over the rapids...) before realising we would never make our intended route by sunset and thus climbed back out the way we came. We returned to ...

A very long overnight bus journey brought me to Arequipa, drowsy and disoriented. I decided to take an easy half-day double decker bus ride tour around the city to get a feel for the town. Arequipa was originally built using white colored volcanic rocks, so much of the older city buildlings are constructed with that material. The tour took us through the various districts of the city and I got a glimpse of the many terraced ...

... a good bit of banter with throughout the 3 days. There were 3 couples as well... one Polish, one French, and one Israeli. All were really nice people and the group really did get on fantastically. It´s a shame that we´re not doing Machu Pichu with them.<br><br>The accomodation for the first night was basic to say the least but the setting in the foot of the canyon more than made up for the lack of modern amenities. On waking the next morning we headed off for ´Paradise´, the name of ...

... for any transport they could get or for one of only half a dozen taxis that seemed to be around. We were lucky to snag one, but after only a few seconds of chatting to the driver, found out that he´d been at the contest all afternoon, and had partaken in more than a few local bevvies!!!! Hmmmm, as he swerved all over the road whenever he turned around to talk to us and wanted us to go for a drink with him to some local bars, we ...